THE HEART OF JAMES McAULEY
By Peter Coleman, Connor Court Publishing, $29.95
Reviewed by Terry Oberg
THE Heart of James McAuley was first published in 1980. The latest edition features a new foreword by R.J. Stove, a preface and a revised bibliography.
Peter Coleman’s aptly titled work is a biography of one of our greatest poets.
This significant man’s life is told through his poetry augmented by the author’s explanations and reflections.
McAuley’s student days, his time as a teacher at Sydney’s exclusive Shore School and his entry into World War II precede the famous (or infamous, depending on one’s point of view) Ern Malley affair.
All these are bound by a theme that motivates this entire life. It is a recurring motif that Coleman identifies and uses as the effective structure for his narrative.
This is the poet’s “search for a principle of creativity and order in a sterile world”.
Rightly, McAuley’s poetry is criticised when he, self-indulgently, adopts a patronising tone of superiority towards this world as in his otherwise magnificent A Letter to John Dryden. His reference to “the stunted souls of men and women” shamed him into flirting with the notion of disowning the whole poem.
His 1952 conversion to Catholicism lost him personal friendships and gained him literary enemies.
Several of these seemed unable to accept that a poet-academic-intellectual could be attracted to the Father-Son-Spirit trinity of mainstream Christianity.
Even worse was the apparent comfort he seemed to find in the Roman Church.
Perceptively, Coleman is alive to the duality of conversion. As many before and since found, Catholicism did not present an easy path.
The poet’s life developed through several fruitful partnerships. His co-operation with B.A. Santamaria leading to his political alliance with the National Civic Council and the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) was one of these.
His vocation to foster the growth of New Guinea as a culture and nation aided by but distinct from Australia produced notable poetry.
His editorship of Quadrant, through his singularly principled outlook on the kind of literature, particularly poetry, he wanted to encourage, endeared friends and gave his growing number of detractors more chances to express jaundiced prejudices.
Peter Coleman covers this with just sufficient detail to inform and tantalise.
The closest association most of us have with this magnificent Australian writer is through the ubiquitous Living Parish Hymnal, one of the success stories of local publishing.
James McAuley penned the words to many of these hymns to accompany the music of Richard Connolly.
The poet was never fully satisfied with his output in this venture but most of us are.
One problem with this new publication is the index. It is incomplete. Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Wordsworth and Cassandra Pybus are mentioned in the text, yet do not appear in the index.
As a resource whose potential for academic purposes is self-evident this is not good enough. Conversely the new bibliography is well set out and seems complete.
Because of its subject matter I doubt if a book such as this will win any literary awards.
McAuley is not fashionable, even in places where he should be revered, such as our secondary schools.
I was fortunate to be taught English in a Catholic school when Hopkins, Chesterton, Eliot and the early McAuley were standard fare.
My Christian Brother teachers introduced myself and countless others to this literary and moral treasure house.
Thank God for them and may their souls rest in peace. Thanks too for Peter Coleman and his new publisher who have given him one more chance to display the heart of James McAuley.
